To Prevail, America Must Get Scrappy
By Eric Brown & Bryan Clark , Henry Sokolski
July 11, 2025
Last Sunday, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth admitted that whenever the Pentagon games war with China, our military loses every time. His admission is yet another indication that America’s unrivaled primacy in Asia is over.
This was inevitable given technology proliferation and China’s global economic growth. Now we must deal with the consequences: Unlike the Cold War, we cannot unilaterally outspend, out-arm, and outperform both China and Russia. Certainly, not simultaneously. Nor will accommodating Russia accomplish anything but embolden Moscow and Beijing.
As a result, America can no longer be an overeager or a reactive power. We need instead to reprise our role as a scrappy insurgent republic. Through security guarantees to our treaty allies and partners, America must keep Russia from doing more harm to its neighbors and keep Beijing’s multi-faceted bid for Asian paramountcy—including enlisting Russia as a proxy—in check.
Our budget will be tight. Certainly, dreams of devoting five percent of America’s gross domestic product to defense and doing it within five to ten years are over: Even with the $150 billion in additional Pentagon spending from reconciliation, America’s defense budget will still be less than three and a half percent of its GDP.
https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2025/07/11/to_prevail_america_must_get_scrappy_1122142.html
